Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and its characters belong to Hiro Mashima; I own absolutely nothing. Cover image by Meagan/krocatoo.

part 3: these dark autumn shadows

The fact that they weren't courting spread like fire through dry grass, and by the time the leaves had turned both yellow and red and the days colder and shorter, the whole herd knew of his intentions with their littlest doe.

He'd never been one for paying attention to herd hearsay in the past, but finding himself at the centre of conversation was, to say the least, unnerving.

"You brought this on yourself, you know," Lily told him one day, sitting by the river with the rest of the herd a few paces off, the does and fawns playing in the fallen leaves by the riverbank.

"You've said that already."

"Yes, well, I'm saying it again."

Gajeel glared. "You were the one who told me ta go for it."

Lily snorted. "I told you to settle things with her – put yourself in a better light. I didn't explicitly tell you to court her."

Gajeel grumbled. "Spring's a long ways off. The old stag said we weren't allowed ta do anything before that."

Lily grinned. "Afraid she'd meet someone else?"

Gajeel cast a glance at his friend's antlers, and the dried crown of white water-lilies snug around the base of the horns. "You didn't wait," was all he said.

An old ghost of a smile flickered across the older stag's face. "And let someone else make a move? What do you take me for?" The smile widened. "And she was the one who asked first, if you must know."

Gajeel raised a brow. "Yeah?"

Lily nodded. "Told me straight out how it was, all regal-like with her held high – you'd think she was challenging me to butt heads," he laughed, and his eyes crinkled with remembered mirth. "She was rare, she was."

Gajeel said nothing to that, but drew his eyes away from the dried-up wreath. It wouldn't last another winter, but Lily didn't seem inclined to remove it.

He looked across the clearing where Levy was playing in the fallen leaves with Happy, the fawn always at Natsu's flank. Laughter drifted back to where they sat, and he noted she'd exchanged her flower wreath for one of leaves of varying shades of yellow. A pace away the two bucks that always followed her around lingered, eyes alert for hunters and other fell things that lurked in the autumn shadows.

It was an oddly domestic sight, and something roiled within him as he remembered similar afternoons with his old herd – fawns bouncing between the legs of the older deer, and the does laughing by the cold mountain springs. And in the shade of the mountainside, the quiet footsteps of Men, the sound drowned by the rushing water.

"I can tell what you're thinking, and I'd advise you to put those thoughts away."

Lily's voice drew him from where he'd retreated within his own memory, and brought him back to the present – a forest not so dark, and no mountain springs in sight. The laughter hadn't paused, bubbling along with the cold river-water against the stones, and a breeze ruffled the sparsely covered trees overhead.

"We're getting attached," Gajeel said at length, the words seeming almost hollow despite the weight they carried.

Lily's smile was a forced thing. "Yes," he agreed, and left it at that. There was nothing more to be said on the matter; they both knew the peril that lurked beyond the forest borders, and the evil that sometimes slithered in along the forest floor, to gather and hide in the shade of the trees and the tall grass.

He watched the fawns tugging playfully at the tails of their elders, only to be scooped up and thrown, shrieking with laughter, into a pile of leaves, sending them fluttering in all directions. There was an innocence in that sound that bespoke a protected existence far removed from iron and fire, of traps lurking in the bushes and bullets aimed to kill.

He wondered idly how long something like that could last.

He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts, he hadn't noticed her approach before she was kneeling before them, cheeks rosy from the cold and brown eyes crinkling at the corners with laughter.

"You're both being very unsociable, sitting here on your own!"

No doubt thinking he'd be quick to say something rude, Lily beat him to the punch, "Apologies, Levy, we were talking of old days when we should have been enjoying the present."

Gajeel resisted the urge to roll his eyes – leave it Lily to make something as simple as 'we're too damn old to play in the leaves' sound so grand.

For her part, Levy seemed to accept the excuse readily enough, gaze lingering only a little too long on the dried flower-wreath around Lily's antlers, before she turned her smile on Gajeel. "The little ones were asking if you wanted to come and play, but I told them they had to ask you themselves, and no one dares." She cast a glance across the riverbank, where a group of fawns were hiding behind the trunk of an ash tree.

She turned back with a smile. "You'd win some points if you did," she told him.

Gajeel grumbled, gaze settling on the group of fawns, who receded further behind the tree. "Later," he said, and watched surprise flicker across her features. She'd no doubt expected him to vehemently decline.

"He's good with the littleuns," Lily said then, with a sly smile. "If they can get used to the glaring." At Gajeel's look, he laughed. "By all that's green I can't figure out what, but there's something they find appealing. Maybe it is the glare."

Levy grinned. "Happy was quite taken by your antlers, Gajeel. He wants a pair just like them," she declared, eyes alight with mirth. "Natsu looked ready to throw himself in the river. You might expect a duel soon – you know how proud he is of his own set."

Gajeel snorted. "I'll take that runt on any day."

"If you do, make sure you watch your hip," Lily interjected with a grin. "You're not a fawn anymore, Gajeel, and best you remember that."

"That is rich coming from you."

"I'm not the one jumping at chances to butt heads," the older stag pointed out. "I'm well aware of my age. And that old wound's been giving you trouble since the temperature dropped."

Gajeel shifted in his seat at the mention, and tried to avoid the way the large brown eyes shot towards his flank, and the scar bisecting his dark coat. It was impossible to miss, but he hadn't felt self-conscious about it before now.

But there was no disgust on her face, only a wary sort of curiosity that spoke of questions she wasn't yet comfortable enough to ask. He resolved then to get a query out of her before winter was over.

"Levy!"

Looking over her shoulder, Gajeel followed her gaze towards where Lucy stood by the pile of leaves, a group of fawns ambling at her flanks, tugging eagerly at her hands. Levy turned back to them with an apologetic smile.

"Looks like I'm needed," she laughed, and rose smoothly from her seat. She spared him a last, lingering look before she bounded across the bank, the gold and brown of the leaves bright against her silvery-blue coat.

When he looked back at Lily, the expression that met him told him his ogling hadn't gone unnoticed. "She's a lovely creature – you don't see a coat like that every day. It was certainly rare in the North."

Gajeel grumbled, "What are you getting at, you meddling old goat?"

Lily grinned, the gesture tugging at his scar. "I'm just stating a fact."

"You've always got a motive."

"Well..."

"Out with it."

Lily snorted. "Can't an old stag appreciate the pretty young things around him without being questioned?"

"Not you."

Lily was quiet a moment. Then he smiled. "I was just wondering how you roped her into making you a wreath."

Gajeel sighed. "And there it is."

"Not to mention, the very same day you met, and that's after you outright insulted her on her own turf." He shook his head. "Maybe the rumours are true and this forest really is enchanted."

Gajeel snorted. "You been sniffin' pixie dust, greyback?"

A hand cuffed him across the back of his head, and he grinned. "Just askin'."

Lily shook his head. "An old stag can marvel at the world, Gajeel. I wasn't expecting...this," he said, gaze sweeping across the riverbank, and the gathered deer-folk, "when we set out last spring." His smile turned wry. "It's not entirely amiss, thinking there might be more behind it than simple coincidence." He threw the younger stag a sidelong look. "Especially considering how smitten you've become."

"Smitten–"

"Is a good description, with how you can't stop looking at her."

Gajeel turned his eyes resolutely away from the does and fawns playing in the leaves, and met Lily's knowing look with a glower, which only seemed to amuse the older stag.

"Don't take it personally, Gajeel – I'm happy you've found a place here, however much you pretend at being a recluse."

Lily was quiet another long moment. "She reminds me of Shagotte, you know," he said then. "Or what her daughter might have been like, if the spirits had ever blessed us with one." He let the words hang between them, heavy with unspoken grief – the kind that would always linger, regardless of how many seasons passed.

Gajeel didn't bother telling him that it wasn't too late to find someone new, knowing full well that Lily intended to spend his remaining seasons alone. Or, as alone as one might be, in a raucous herd like the one they'd found.

"You'll be fawn-sitting yet, old goat," he said instead, throwing him a meaningful look, mouth curving upwards in a smirk.

Lily raised a brow, but there was a smile there, now. "That's a bold promise, Gajeel – she hasn't given you a wreath yet."

Gajeel shrugged. "I know a good thing when I see one," was all he said.

And Lily understood, the way he always did. "Aye. You better not let her out of your sight – spring might be a ways off yet, but once the winter thaws there'll no doubt be a small herd of eager bucks jumping to get her attention."

Gajeel's ear twitched at the thought, but he offered only a grunt in response. Lily grinned. "And you better be ready to accept whatever wreath she makes you, no matter the flowers."

"Yeah, yeah. I'd wear a bloody pixie crown and you know it, so you can tone down the mockery."

Lily quirked a brow. "You must have it bad if you'd admit that without even trying to deny it." He gave him a look. "But don't go getting too comfortable, now. There's still a cold winter ahead, and there's been cases where a good frost has brought many foolish folk to their senses, if you remember."

"I remember," he muttered, at the fleeting memory of romances chilled by the cold. The winter months were always hard up north, and a good time to judge whether a potential mate was worth his or her salt. It wasn't uncommon that by the time the snow melted, a promised pair might go separate ways without exchanging wreaths.

The thought that she'd find him lacking in some way didn't sit well with him.

Seeming to sense his thoughts, Lily nudged his side with his elbow. "Don't you go counting your losses before you've actually lost – she's still stealing glances at you every chance she gets. That's a good a sign as any she's as enamoured as you." He grinned, and Gajeel felt some of the tension in his shoulders bleed away at the sight.

"Now you've just got to keep her interested 'til spring. I'd personally recommend keeping your mouth shut as much as possible, but knowing you, that's asking a bit much."

Gajeel only grumbled, but Lily's laughter was genuine and it had been a whole season since he'd last heard it, so he let the remark slide. His good humour seemed to have chased away some of the ghosts always clinging to his smiles, and Gajeel breathed a little easier in the cold afternoon air. Overhead the autumn sun peeked through the branches of the trees, slanting across the forest floor and glinting off the water, and for a blessed moment they sat in comfortable silence.

But like all good things, the peace wouldn't last forever, a fact that was driven home by the sudden, furious beat of hooves against the ground and the rustle of branches, before a buck burst past the tree-line, a word spilling from his lips that had Gajeel's stomach lurching with familiar dread–

–"Hunter!"

AN: Those of you familiar with my writing will know I'm liable to pull this kind of crap.